Fold
by Mala
Summary: You do what you can with the cards you've been dealt. John&Natalie, language, adult situations.


Title: "Fold"  
  
Author: Mala  
  
E-mail: malisita@yahoo.com  
  
Fandom: "One Life to Live"  
  
Rating/Classification: R, John/Natalie, sexual situations, language.  
  
Disclaimer: Nope. I don't own these characters.  
  
Summary: You do what you can with the cards you've been dealt.  
  
The cheek against her thigh is stubbled, rough...and she shivers, unused to the friction, the rasp of his mustache and beard. Cristian...Cristian could go days without shaving. She used to say that he couldn't grow a beard to save his life...and, now, she knows that facial hair wouldn't have done that. Now she knows the bittersweet rasp of it against her skin does nothing except hold the ghosts at bay.  
  
"John..." His fingers aren't slender and tapered, not used to holding brushes and pencils. They're callused, firm, and she imagines grooves worn into them from all the triggers he's pulled. He whispers that he's wanted this for so long... that he's dreamed about her... that he's ached for her. She doesn't tell him that he still hasn't done the ultimate... he hasn't died for her.  
  
She gasps, bucking up against his mouth, and he isn't gentle...not tentative...the touch of his tongue is anything but sweet. All his restraint, his sorrow, the way his dark eyes throbbed with guilt as he followed her around Crossroads, sat with her at Rodi's...none of that exists here. He cradles her hips with the palms of his hands and devours her. Demanding that she want this, that she dream of this, that she ache for this...  
  
She clutches the sheets with her fists...gives up and tangles her fingers in his long, unkempt hair. They are the same. Her and him. Casino brats who will always lose the gamble. She doesn't know why she thought she'd beat the house... she only knows that her husband is dead and the man making her scream is the one who called her bluff.  
  
She pleads with him to fuck her. Hard and fast so she doesn't feel the tears sliding down her cheeks, soaking the pillows. He flips her so she's above him...and he surges upwards and catches the grief with his lips. She doesn't have to tell him that she didn't use words like "fuck" and "cock" and "give it to me" with Cristian. She doesn't have to tell him that it was making love... and this won't ever be.  
  
He knows.  
  
He knows he'll never come close.  
  
So, he just brings her to the brink.  
  
Close enough.  
  
***  
  
Her body is soft, smooth, welcoming. Not like the brittle words that spill from her throat and the sharp edge to her eyes.  
  
He knows that when she showed up at his door, her coat layered with snow and her pale skin flushed from the cold, all she wanted from him was escape. Oblivion. Angry sex with someone she doesn't quite hate but can never quite like. He can give her that. He can pull gasps from her lips and make her thighs quiver with need so intense it'll blow her mind.  
  
But he can't reach deeper than her orgasm...or higher than the shuddering scream as she collapses against him and cries into his neck over another man.  
  
John is willing to take what he can get. What she's offering. He knows he deserves far less. He deserved far less than Natalie slipping off her clothes and standing naked before him, talking dirty and shoving him into bed. He jerked off to the fantasy for months and the reality is almost more than he can bear. But he *can* bear the weight of her. Of her tears. Of her whispering, "Fuck me again. Fuck me and make me forget."  
  
She's lying. Even as he hardens inside her and she clasps his hips, guiding him, he knows she's lying. Her poker face is terrible. He can see her entire hand.  
  
Nothing he can do will make her forget.  
  
He can make her come a thousand times and she won't forget what she's lost. Maybe on a thousand-and-two. Maybe a thousand and fifteen and she'll love him the way she loved Cristian Vega.  
  
He's willing to try.  
  
Even if the deck is stacked against him.  
  
Even if the house always wins.  
  
--end-  
  
December 19, 2003. 


End file.
